Category Archives: Lake Wanahoo

My dad had originally planned a knee replacement this last winter so that we would have plenty of time to fish in the spring and summer, but then later on in the spring he needed a quick hip replacement. It was a big bummer, but now he was started to get better from the surgeries and we had to get out with the boat! Its also starting to get hot so we decided to get up really early and hit the lake at sunrise.

We got out there in perfect time and got to see a gorgeous sunrise while starting to fish. Some great pictures come with everyone else is still sleeping!

We caught a bass or two around the pier before trying the drop off near the campgrounds. but the shallow spots were very unproductive. So we decided to head for the channel and fish around some deeper timber. We stayed on the south side of the lake and found the channel. It took a few minutes but we did find the fish there. My dad was fishing the Ned Rig and I was fishing a Pig and Jig. We found the fish by throwing out baits in deeper pockets (8-10 feet deep) and in the thick part of the brush piles and deep into the trees. The bites were a little soft and hard to recognize. Often they were just there and we would feel the weight of them on the line. Once they were hooked they were also tough to get to the boat because we were having to fish so deep in the wood piles that they would often wrap around branches or stick us in trees. We caught quite a few doing this and had even more bites that we missed.

After the bit slowed down a little we left and went to try some of the grass spots on the eastern side of the lake but had very little luck there.

Eventually we made it back to where we had caught fish earlier in the day and continued to catch quality fish. It was fun to catch fish but it was just as good to be back on the water with my dad. We will be fishing a lot more the rest of this summer to make up for missing some earlier spring trips!

Lake Ranking: 5 star

This lake is always good for catching fish and usually good quality fish. Always recommend it for people looking to catch good fish that is close to Omaha or Lincoln.

Decided to get out a little early today but apparently it wasn’t early enough! I got to the lake and noticed a lot of trailers in the parking lot, a lot of big boats, wrapped trucks and sponsored boats.. definitely a local tournament going on at the lake today. That’s OK though, with my small boat I can easily get into places a lot of the bigger boats can’t reach.

I started off fishing the pier by the ramp and then moved onto the shallow grass just to the north of it. I did catch a green sunfish pretty quickly and then hooked into a small pike off of the pier which is always a good time!

After fishing around some of the bigger boats I decided to head for more difficult waters. I went under the bridge and back around to the back side (west side) of the island. Here even in my little boat my trolling motor was kicking up mud and I was pumping into trees and stumps, but it was worth it! I love this little spot though, its hard to get to and most big boats can’t even touch it. Sometimes working hard and getting to not well known places pays huge dividends!

I started throwing a bass jig and trailer as well as square bill crank bait that didn’t have a rattle. Both turned out to be golden! I started catching multiple bass all 2 pounds or better, the biggest was just barely over 4! The interesting thing about it was that all of the bass and even the pike I caught all had red fins and tails! Very unique. The fishing were crushing the lures and I often had to use pliers to get the lures from deep within the fish’s mouth.

After fishing around the island and catching around 7 or 8 bass, all 15+ inches I decided to move on and try fishing around some of the other trees without much luck.

Once I was done fishing I talked with someone I knew who was in the tournament a few days later and they said they had caught a few smaller fish but only had one that they checked in for the tournament. I don’t know what the winning weights were but I think I would have had 5 by myself that would have done well. So that made me feel pretty good!

Lake Ranking: 5 Star

This lake always produces good fish. Even during a tournament day I was able to pull off a pretty good bag of fish. Its a great place to catch big fish and a lot of numbers of fish. It’s a busy lake but still big enough for everyone!

My dad and I had been planning to go fishing on this day all week. As the time got closer we checked the weather and noticed it started calling for a rainy day.. Kinda of bummed but it looked like the temperature was still supposed to be decent and it looked like rain only, not to much wind or any lightning. So we decided to pack up our rain suites and give it a go anyways.

We started by fishing the trees and rock jetties around the south side of the lake. The water was pretty clear and even though it was raining we thought we should get into some fish. After fishing for a while with little to no bites we decided to switch it up and we headed north of the walking path.

We noticed immediately after going under the bridge that the water on the north side was much dirtier than the south. But as we started fishing the trees right by the channel on the North side my dad hooked into a nice bass! We switched up our presentations to slower plastics and started catching fish. All of the bass were 2-3 lbs and seemed to be good healthy fish. I also hooked into a large Northern Pike that was a blast to catch.

We still weren’t catching fish like crazy but we had found 4-5 and had some fun catching um. After a while we became tired of the rain and decided to call it a day. Even though the weather wasn’t the greatest Wanahoo never seems to disappoint!

Lake Ranking: 5 star

Even in rainy windy conditions it may have taken us a while to find fish but we did find them and found some quality fish at that. I would recommend Wanahoo to anyone looking to find a good number a fish and some of quality too!

I hadn’t been out to Wanahoo yet this year so I had to make a trip! The water was high and kind of muddy because we had some recent storms. Since my boat only has a trolling motor I always start fishing by pier closest to the ramp then move to the reeds and vegetation just north of the ramp.

Today the wind was strong enough that in order to stay in position with my Jon boat I had to anchor multiple times to avoid getting blown off my spot. I had thrown all kinds of lures and hadn’t gotten bit after about an hour so I decided to move into the trees.

Here I found the channel and tried tying up to trees to help me stay in position. While there I did get two bites, catching one of them. It was a nice bass just under 3 lbs that I caught on a shad colored crank bait. But even there I wasn’t finding the fish like I wanted to.

I moved all the way to the east side of the lake to try my best to get out of the wind and found a decent spot with what looked like good matted vegetation. I noticed frogs sitting on top but also some good open pockets in the grass, so I tied on a weightless 5″ senko and started throwing on top of the weeds. Pretty quickly I had a nice bass hit it through the grass! One of the funnest ways to catch a fish! As I worked along the stretch of grass I caught two more fish all between 2-3lbs. The other two bit just as my lure hit the open spot and the bass ambushed it through the openings in the weeds. The grass line I found was in about 6 inches to a foot of water and was only about 100ft long.

It took me a little while to find and catch consistent fish but once I did it was a lot of fun!

Lake ranking: 5 star

Even when the fishing is slow or conditions are tough you can usually find some kind of fish here and they are healthy good sized fish. Also the lake is big enough to be busy and still have room for everyone

Today I had a friend Andrew come with me on a fishing trip! He is from Minnesota and finally brought back his fishing gear so we had to go out. I know that our lakes in eastern Nebraska don’t compare well with Minnesota lakes so I had to take him to Lake Wanahoo were we would have the chance of catching big bass, northern pike and walleye.

Today was very windy morning! We had storms the night before so the north side of the lake was muddy so we stayed mainly on the south side. And due to the wind we had limited places we could go or places we could fish because my little aluminum boat was getting pushed around a lot.

For the first couple of hours we didn’t get much to bite and we threw a lot of different lures all around multiple different kinds of structure. We finally hooked into a nice bass as we were fishing deep crankbaits around trees in about 15 feet of water. But we were having to stay behind all of the trees to avoid larger waves and to be able to control the boat.

We had thought that once we caught one maybe we would catch a few more doing something similar, but we stayed there for a while and couldn’t find more fish that wanted to bit. So we moved back to the west side of the lake and fished around the cat tails in the shallow areas of the lake. I got tired of fighting the wind so we started anchoring at the spots we wanted to fish and slowly picking them apart. Andrew had hooked into a couple of fish throwing a top water frog and a spinner bait. And then as we were fishing by the boat ramp I was using a pig and jig and caught two fish.

All the fish we caught and/or hooked were good sized anywhere from 15-18 inches. We didn’t get a lot of bites but the ones we did really hit the lures hard and close to shore. Enjoy the pictures!

Lake Ranking: 5 star

Even with strong winds and post storm conditions we were still able to pull out some nice fish! This lake is always a good time and has very quality fish.

Today my dad and me actually fished a tournament at Wanahoo! We fished with the no wake bass club who I had fished with a couple years ago and had a good time.

We kicked off around 7am and finished around 1pm. And all fish were measured by length at the boat and released.

We started fishing grass mats just north of the boat ramp and caught a few keepers right away but didn’t see the size of fish we were looking for. So we moved to the peers on the east side of the lake and on those rocks we caught a lot of fished around 15-16 inches. My dad was catching them on a senko around grass patches and I caught most of mine bouncing a crank bait off of the rocks.

We then moved back to the trees straight out from the boat ramp trying to find a few larger fish but couldn’t quite locate them.

We finished with 15 countable fish, we had a few smaller ones and also a northern pike and a really nice walleye! Overall we finished about third in every category (of 7 boats I think). All we would have needed was one fish over 18 inches and we may have taken the tournament.. Maybe next time!

Lake ranking: 5 starI’ve ranked this lake before at five and it still holds, while we didn’t catch many big fish (the largest of the tournament was 18) we caught a lot of nice 15-16 inch fish and the thrill of all the multi species is exciting too!

Today I had a couple hours to myself and it was gorgeous weather so what better to do than to go to the lake! I headed out to lake Wanahoo since I hadn’t been there for a while and also has a tournament the next weekend.

The water was actually pretty clear (south of the walking pier) and there was barely a breeze at all. I started fishing just to the south of the boat ramp and quickly found some matted weeds with a top water frog. The bass were so aggressive they were literally jumping completely out of the water to grab my bait.

I caught about 15 bass and three Pike in a couple of hours! Great time this lake is always fun and has some real quality fish. I would highly recommend reviewing the lake map before coming, you can find it under topographic maps on my site!

Lake raking – 5 starThe lake has find of quality fish, great structures to fish and its large enough to hold a lot of fisherman. I highly recommend this lake to anyone looking to catch quantity of fish that are slightly above average.

Today I had a couple hours to myself and it was gorgeous weather so what better to do than to go to the lake! I headed out to lake Wanahoo since I hadn’t been there for a while and also has a tournament the next weekend.

The water was actually pretty clear (south of the walking pier) and there was barely a breeze at all. I started fishing just to the south of the boat ramp and quickly found some matted weeds with a top water frog. The bass were so aggressive they were literally jumping completely out of the water to grab my bait.

I caught about 15 bass and three Pike in a couple of hours! Great time this lake is always fun and has some real quality fish. I would highly recommend reviewing the lake map before coming, you can find it under topographic maps on my site!

Lake raking – 5 starThe lake has find of quality fish, great structures to fish and its large enough to hold a lot of fisherman. I highly recommend this lake to anyone looking to catch quantity of fish that are slightly above average.

So today my dad had just gotten some work done with his boat and was eager to test it out. My brother and myself met him at the lake mid morning to try our luck at catching some bass.

We got there a little before my dad did with the boat so we started casting from the dock. Within a few minutes I caught a nice 2 12 lb bass on a crank bait right around the ramps. Then when the boat for there we did a few test starts with the motor and thanks to Premier Boating Center in Lincoln the engine now runs great!

We started by fishing around the rocks on the walking pier then moved our way to the north side of the lake fishing around the trees and eventually scooting through the channel. While fishing the channel my dad caught a 3 lb bass on a Texas rigged plastic bait but the fishing was pretty slow.

We then moved back to the south side of the lake and fished some wind blown points but without any luck. After a couple hours we called it a day. We only caught the two fish but they were both big and healthy.

Lake Ranking: 5 star

While today was a little slow on catching fish we really weren’t out there too long and the fish we caught we quality. There are plenty of nice fish in this lake and plenty of ways to catch them. If you haven’t (or even if you have) fished here before I would highly recommend it.

After the fall rains we were getting I had heard that wanahoo water levels were really high and muddy and it got me excited! I love fishing in these conditions and always seem to catch some nice fish.

I had the opportunity to take my brothers did Kirra with me today and she loves going out with me and is an excellent retriever who loves to get wet.

I fished mainly on the south side where it was muddier and stuck closer to the shore where the water was covering new grounds. I fished around rock piles, grass patches and cat tails. I quickly found the fish and caught plenty of them. All the fish were caught on the bass pro ships enticer jig in a black and purple color and when the fish found out they hammered it!

I fished along the west side up to the dam and back before calling it a day. And kirra was excited once we were done because she new I would throw a stick for her!
Enjoy the pictures!

Overall Ranking: 5 Star

Great boat ramp and fishing structure. Good fishing with a lot of diversity in species and a great location being close to Omaha and Lincoln.